Labour won’t save the NHS

Any culture, society or nation is ultimately judged on how it protects its citizens, and how it treats and cares for its most vulnerable. And on this standard, the Conservatives have failed. Over the past 14 years, their contempt has …

The very eccentric birth of Labour

In the freezing West Riding winter of January 1893, around 120 miscellaneous radicals and reformers met in Bradford’s Labour Institute — originally a Wesleyan chapel, later a Salvation Army barracks — to debate the creation of a new political body. …

Keir Starmer’s moral vacuum

Who is Sir Keir Starmer, really? It’s fairly clear that the British public have difficulty with this question. Although by now they’ve probably picked up that he’s the son of a toolmaker, much else remains obscure. On the face of …

TikTok won’t win the election

Is this the online election? The AI election? The TikTok election? As somebody who’s been writing about data-driven political campaigning for about a decade, I’m going to stick my neck out and say “no”.

Let’s start with TikTok, which the …

TikTok won’t win the election

Is this the online election? The AI election? The TikTok election? As somebody who’s been writing about data-driven political campaigning for about a decade, I’m going to stick my neck out and say “no”.

Let’s start with TikTok, which the …

Britain’s golden age of sleaze

For many years now, the gold standard for government sleaze has been John Major’s ill-fated administration between 1992 and 97, but maybe that’s no longer the case. Maybe we’ve just been living through the true golden age. After all, the …

Inside the Labour purge

Diane Abbott, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Faiza Shaheen — within a matter of hours, all had fallen victim to the Starmerite machine. Led by campaign chief Morgan McSweeney and candidate supremo Matt Faulding, Keir Starmer’s inner circle have shown themselves to be …